When April spreads her mantle green

Across the pasture-lands of snow,

And Spring’s first scarlet breasts are seen

Where treetops rustle to and fro;

Then come fair fragrant dreams as though

Our lightest fancy to entrance

And paint us what we fain would know

Adown the lanes of Old Romance.

Anon, we see the golden sheen

Of burnished mail the sunbeams throw,

Flashing the poplars tall between,

As knights ride by to meet the foe;

Or, mayhap, shepherd lads who blow

On slender pipes, a pastoral dance—

Ah, strong were they in weal and woe

Adown the lanes of Old Romance!

But now the vast years intervene,

The fountain long has ceased its flow,

And silence rules the lone demesne

That once held such a goodly show;

Yet time, at least, does this bestow

Nor leave the best to fleeting chance—

They live again in fancy’s glow

Adown the lanes of Old Romance.

Sweet, still for us some blossoms grow

From out that dim and dear expanse—

Come, take my hand and we shall go

Adown the lanes of Old Romance!